Container shipping lines have announced further service changes on the transpacific and Asia-Europe trade lane to reflect the slowdown in demand for the winter period.
The G6 Alliance of APL, Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine, Mitsui OSK Lines, Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Orient Overseas Container Line has announced it will temporarily axe its Central China CC2 service to the US west coast in response to “seasonal changes in market demand”.
Container shipping lines have announced further service changes on the transpacific and Asia-Europe trade lane to reflect the slowdown in demand for the winter period.
The G6 Alliance of APL, Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine, Mitsui OSK Lines, Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Orient Overseas Container Line has announced it will temporarily axe its Central China CC2 service to the US west coast in response to “seasonal changes in market demand”.
The last sailing of the service will take place on October 31. The alliance said all ports called by CC2 will be covered by other services.
According to Containerisation International research the weekly service is operated by four vessels with an average total capacity of 5,800 teu.
In total, there are 57 services that cover Asia and the North American west coast, although many of those stop at the west coast on their way to the east coast, South America and Caribbean, or they are pendulum services.
The G6 Alliance is an operator on 14 of these services.
Even with these non-direct services stripped out there are a total of 38 dedicated Asia-west coast strings.
Containerisation International estimates show that the service suspension will remove around 1.6% of capacity from the market.
Last week, the alliance announced it would combine its NYE and SCE service heading from Asia to the North American east coast. This would remove around 3.3% of capacity on the transpacific east coast trade lane.
Meanwhile, Maersk Line has announced four sailing cancellations on the Asia-north Europe trade lane.
The Danish carrier said that due to a “predicted lack of demand” it would cancel four AE6 sailings scheduled for the fourth quarter.
One of these cancellations will take place in October, two in November and the final one in December.
The service operates vessels with an average size of just under 6,500 teu.
Extra calls will be added to either the AE2 or AE7 services during those weeks to cover customer requirements, Maersk Line said.
This is not the first service change announced for the trade lane during the winter period.
In September, the G6 Alliance announced it would cancel a sailing of its Asia-Europe Loop 7 service leaving Qingdao in mid-November in line with the winter slow down.
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